Time to amend the Constitutiom

The Straits Times

Oct 12, 2007

NON-DISCRIMINATION OF WOMEN

Time to amend the Constitution
By Radha Basu

A RECENT exchange between Singapore officials and a UN committee promoting gender equality was an interesting example of pragmatism pitted against principle.
The committee, tasked to examine member states' adherence to Cedaw (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women), lauded Singapore for progress made by women here, but it also expressed concern over the lack of specific local laws proscribing gender discrimination.
Representing Singapore, Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, the Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, gave a valiant defence of how the Republic had met its obligations under Cedaw, to which it acceded in 1995. She also called a press conference last week to give more information on Singapore's counter-arguments.
'We agree with Cedaw's objectives, but have a different way of achieving these objectives,' she said.
Rather than enact difficult- to-enforce laws, Singapore preferred to focus instead on increasing opportunities for women to excel in studies, work and public service, she pointed out.
She cited a list of priorities: getting more older women back to work, helping women to earn more and ensuring that women young and old have enough opportunities to balance career demands with the time and space to fulfil their duties as mothers, daughters or wives.
Helping older women back to work is a particularly pressing concern, with Singaporeans - particularly women - living longer than ever before. Only about 42 per cent of women in their mid- to late 50s currently work, compared to 78 per cent of men.
A tripartite committee has been formed to look into how these numbers can be improved.
Indeed, the Singapore approach of identifying problem areas and solving them in an organised way has yielded rich dividends.
Singapore has the world's lowest infant mortality rates. Maternal mortality rates too are low, comparable in most years to those in Europe.
Women graduates outnumber men. Also, women own or co-own 87 per cent of Housing Board flats.
Violence against women has been kept well in check. Despite population increases, the number of rapes per 100,000 population actually declined from 3.04 in 2000 to 2.85 in 2005.
The number of female victims of violence seeking medical help in public hospitals also plummeted - from 658 in 1998 to 297 in 2005.
And while neighbouring Asian giants China and India are facing demographic doom because of rampant female infanticide and foeticide, such practices are virtually unheard of here.
Indeed, Singapore is ranked 18th out of 175 countries in the United Nations Gender Empowerment Measure which tracks gender inequalities in opportunity.
Why then the UN committee's concern? Mainly because of Singapore's 'reservations' about - or refusal to fully accept - Articles 2 and 16 of the treaty.
Under Article 2, state parties are required to condemn discrimination against women 'in all its forms' and agree to embody the principle of gender equality in their national Constitutions or in other 'appropriate' laws.
Article 16 requires state parties to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters pertaining to marriage and family relations.
Singapore's official stance is that specific laws against gender discrimination - including a Women's Charter which some people have suggested in the past - are not necessary as the Constitution already guarantees the equality of 'all persons' before the law.
Advocacy groups such as the Association for Women in Action and Research (Aware) are not convinced that such a guarantee is enough. Despite the equality clause, practices that can be regarded as discriminatory towards women remain entrenched, it says. An example: Dependants of female employees in many organisations are seldom entitled to the same rights as the dependants of male employees.
Aware also points to the fact that while the Constitution recognises that all persons are equal before the law, it guarantees that there will be no discrimination against citizens on the basis of only 'religion, race, descent or place of birth'. Aware wants this clause to include gender and marital status as well.
Such a guarantee, says Aware president Constance Singam, would be the most 'significant acknowledgement of political will' to grant equal rights to women here.
For the Cedaw committee, Singapore's policy of allowing Muslims to defer to Syariah law in family matters is another sticking point. Certain aspects of Syariah law - which allow for men to have up to four wives, and require women to seek the consent of a male guardian before they marry - are deemed discriminatory.
Mrs Yu-Foo's explanation: Singapore has to 'respect the rights of its indigenous people' - namely the Malay-Musliims - 'to practise their personal and religious laws'.
She added that adequate safeguards had been built into the system to ensure that Muslim women are not victimised.
But these assurances cut little ice with the Cedaw committee. It urged Singapore to study statutes of countries with similar interpretations of Muslim law and 'remove the inconsistencies between civil and Syariah law'.
Aware too supports this notion. Malaysia, the group points out, is able to guarantee equality for women of other faiths under its Constitution even as it maintains Syariah law for Muslims. Other Muslim countries, such as Algeria and Morocco, have also done the same.
So what next?
In many ways, Singapore women have it better than their counterparts in many other countries, but there is probably still room to see how local laws, including the Constitution, can be revised to ensure better protection of women's rights.
For apart from punishing transgressors and providing victims with hope and avenues for swift redress, laws set the tone for the principles a society lives by. Statutes do shape attitudes.
Countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom enshrined gender equality in their statutes as early as the 1960s and 1970s, when most women stayed home to keep house and raise children while men reigned supreme in their roles as patriarch and provider.
It is true that laws guaranteeing gender equality may be difficult to enforce but, to take a parallel, this did not prevent the Government from recently deciding not to repeal a law criminalising male homosexual sex, which is not only regarded as discriminatory by some, but is also equally hard to enforce.
Some political office-bearers have gone on record to say the Government is not going to actively enforce the gay-sex law. In other words, it stays as a matter of 'principle' - largely because homosexuality is still frowned upon by most people here. Here, attitudes are shaping statutes.
But whether attitudes shape statutes or the other way round, surely society here is ready to enshrine in the Constitution a philosophy that states that no one should be discriminated against just because she was born a woman?
In a place where women make up more than half the population, are better educated than men and have been empowered to carve out their own careers, I'm hoping that the answer will be a resounding 'yes'.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Review/Others/STIStory_166192.html